Incomes Flat in Recovery, but Not for the 1%
Last edited Sat Feb 16, 2013, 10:42 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: NY Times
Incomes rose more than 11 percent for the top 1 percent of earners during the economic recovery, but barely at all for everybody else, according to new data.
The numbers, produced by Emmanuel Saez, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, show overall income growing by just 1.7 percent over the period. But there was a wide gap between the top 1 percent, whose earnings rose by 11.2 percent, and the other 99 percent, whose earnings rose by just 0.4 percent.
Mr. Saez, a winner of the John Bates Clark Medal, an economic laurel considered second only to the Nobel, concluded that the Great Recession has only depressed top income shares temporarily and will not undo any of the dramatic increase in top income shares that has taken place since the 1970s.
The disparity between top earners and everybody else can be attributed, in part, to differences in how the two groups make their money. The wealthy have benefited from a four-year boom in the stock market, while high rates of unemployment have continued to hold down the income of wage earners.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/16/business/economy/income-gains-after-recession-went-mostly-to-top-1.html
daleo
(21,317 posts)But only one percent can get it.
Berlum
(7,044 posts)"Too bad about you smelly proles. Smirk." - Republican Party
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)There is only a very slight difference in terms of wealth breakdown between the two parties, and while the GOP does have somewhat more hyper-wealthy neither party has any real meaningful advantage. If one were to ask which party represents the wealthy the correct answer would be BOTH -- which is, of course, why neither wants to do anything about it. They both have their fair share of wealthy members, both recieve donations from the same corporations, and both for the most part propose doing much the same things to address the problem.
It would be nice of those of us in the bottom 80% had some representation, but there it is.
Phlem
(6,323 posts)As I think people who are looking for work and can't find it, don't have incomes are not included in this NY Times article.
-p
Smilo
(1,944 posts)on how the can make more cuts to wages, increase the work week, do away with any benefits for the workforce and all the while make themselves lots more money.
1983law
(213 posts)are getting over?
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)Kablooie
(18,634 posts)The good years are all behind, I guess.
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)They just get stuck with the wreckage and the bill I guess.
It will only get worse. All those state pensions that no one apparently bothered to fund twenty plus years ago, well they are coming due, those folks want their money and the money is not (and likely never was) there. It's a disaster. Sadly, it is not an unexpected disaster.
TomClash
(11,344 posts)You and I won't do anything about it. Trust me, we won't. They think we are a joke and they're right.
Write a letter. Attend a protest. Occupy for a day! Vote for the state capitalist duopoly. Start a blog! That's "change."
Chump change.